There is a spectre haunting Australian Christianity, the spectre of Trumpist Christianity.
For Trumpets read, ultra-conservative politics. What in the US is sometimes called “Christian nationalism”. At the retail level, it shows in devotion to the former President’s fake news of election theft, or the persistent rejection of the concerns of Black Americans.
In an Australian context, it might relate to anti-vaxxer sentiment, or dismissing the concerns of the indigenous communities.
It is appropriately a ‘spectre’. We echoed the opening of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. He proclaimed the spectre of Communism – which only existed in theory – was to come real.
From media accounts, and certainly Premier Daniel Andrews’ description, one might think that City on a Hill, and its senior pastor Guy Mason are as far into conservative Christianity as it is possible to be.
Not so according to the uber-right. For them, City on a Hill are lefty traitors to the Christian cause – and if you were as alert and theologically astute as they claim to be you would have picked that up.
City on a Hill has come under fire from conservative preacher Doug Wilson (pictured, with Guy Mason in the insert). A series of winsome sermons at COAH called “left and right” on social issues has drawn his fire, aimed in particular atGuy Mason who spoke on Transgender Rights in August 2022. “How conservative churches cave on transgenderism” is Wilson’s response to Guy Mason’s sermon.
Guy Mason’s sermon
Guy Mason begins by telling the story of his high school music exam, 20 years ago with a trans woman Jessica. He tells the audience he’s rung her up, to talk through the issues with her and leads the audience through a short history of changes in the social attitude to trans people, in entertainment and sport.
“Jessica shares with me, years of grappling with her identity, disorientation that she could not place.
“When I ask how did you come to a discovery, she says “Actually it was a series of reoccurring dreams. I was born a boy, yet I had this one dream where I was playing as a girl.”
“That dream was a struggle she carried on with that struggle. She tells me in her teen years she threw herself into the music industry as a pleasant distraction. But it was the thought in the morning, the final thought at night.”
Mason is keen to catch up again. He tells the story to set “the tone and the temperature of what we are seeking to do here today.” His is to make it clear that trans people are real people who will be encountered by anyone in the community, the church community.
The sermon moves from a general explainer of the social rise of trans to asking what is the best model of care for people who question their sex assigned at birth. At this point, Mason includes testimonies from several de-transitioners.
Discussing a framework for a church response Mason says “We must affirm that all people are made in the image and likeness of God.” (Referencing Genesis 1, he explains “according to the Bible we don’t make our identity. First and foremost we are to see ourselves as created beings who are made by and for God.
“We marvel at God’s good design, whether you are a woman or a man, whether you are a woman who feels like a man, or a man who feels like a woman. God says you are not an accident. You are not a product of society. You are made in the image of god. You are crowned with his glory.
For Christians, the question is not who does the world say I am? The question is not what some political or religious figures say I am. In the end, the question is not who do I say I am? The question is whom does God say I am?
“And God says you are loved. God says you are made by him. And you are made for him.”
Quoting philosopher Edith Stein, “whoever is near us and needs us must be our neighbour. The love of christ knows no limits it never ends” Mason says “Christians must lean into the rights of those who identify as transgender.”
Mason immediately applies this: Christians need to support trans healthcare needs, and make space, like gender-neutral toilets, think about complex questions around sport, to support the human rights of transgendered people. “We as Christians should be on the front line shining love and offering love.”
In a passage that demonstrates the delicate balance in the sermon, Mason says after speaking against treating trans as a political tool or punchline on social media “trans people are made in the image of god and are worthy of dignity value and respect.
“But in this, we also want to recognise we are embodied beings. I love how the psalmist expresses this: ‘For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother’s womb, I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.’ When God made you he gifted you with a mind to think, a heart to feel and a body to move. Every part of you was knitted together by him.
“And recognising that we are embodied creatures not only helps us recognise the full value of humanity, but the significance of our gender, both its physiological components and the way we express and experience and live out our gender. Because God not only made humanity, but he made us male and female.”
Mason goes on to acknowledge there will be times [for some] “when we despise or doubt our gender” but “we know we have been formed by a Good God”.. should suggest great caution in re-ordering what God has formed together.
This is clearly a church, with a traditional view of sexuality leaning hard into being as kind and generous as they can be from an orthodox position.
Doug Wilson fires back
But Wilson does not see it that way. He sneers at Mason’s sermon, and never seems to get to understand Mason’s balance of generosity in his orthodoxy.
Jumping in when Mason is first saying all people are made in the image of God “Now, I want you to notice how he lays this premise down and is really, really good. The issue is who does God say I am? Not, not even who do I say I am? But then he goes on to ignore what God says [about] this man who feels like a woman. What does God say? This woman who feels like a man, What does God say? And this gentleman is saying, We must defer to what the person feels and not to what God says.”
Anyone who listens further will find that Mason does get there and explicitly lays out what the created order means.
When Mason discusses advocating for healthcare and gender-inclusive bathrooms and “thinking through complex questions around sport,” Wilson responds “what’s complex about it? This dude wants to run in the women’s heat. What’s complex about that? Why is he entering into the confusion? And if the love of Christ knows no end, why on earth are we letting Bruno shower with the junior high girls? What, about the love of Christ for the junior high girls? What about that? Well, it looks like I said earlier, it only stretches to the left, not to the right.”
This is a revealing comment. For Mason to advocate respect for trans people, means Wilson is looking for respect for the right.
When Mason says “Christians should be on the front lines shining light and offering love because trans people are real people.” Wilson’s response is “Speaker 2 (05:21):
Christians should be on the front lines shining light and offering love because trans people are real people.
“This illustrates like few other things. Could the spiritual and theological bankruptcy of the modern reformed evangelical movement, this is just atrocious.” And here, the Wilson commentary on the Mason sermon ceases, maybe a third of the way in. The Wilson commentary only works for readers who have not compared it to the actual sermon. This is not a reasonable critique but spoiling for a church fight, of saying Wilson and his cohort are the only defenders of the Bible.
It is a long sermon. Guy Mason is definitely a long-sermon guy. In this talk, the more explicit theology is in the second half. But it is a mainstream evangelical sermon, affirming traditional Bible-based understanding of gender with a plea for dignity and respect for trans people.
Al Mohler, Southern Baptists and race
Another example of the Uber-right activities is a recent attack on the Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler who is a leader in the conservative side of a conservative denomination. Responding to a skirmish between Doug Wilson and Mohler over his Canon Press publishing some old Mohler material, vlogger Jon Harris reproduces Canon Press tweet.
“Al thinks being on Canon plus is worse than having critical race theory taught at his seminary.”
Harris then describes what he believes is taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary SBTS, the enormous theological college Mohler leads.
Here is his quote from Jarvis William an associate professor of New Testament interpretation at SBTS. It’s worth quoting at length.
“And when we think about white supremacy, it’s not only the overt violent expressions that you see on the television in Charlottesville, for example, but white supremacy is an ideological construct that believes that whiteness is superior to non-whiteness. So then how this shows up in part is it shows up in curriculum, right? Uh, I’m a seminary professor and in theological education, it’s, it’s, you, you’re hard-pressed to find many evangelical institutions that have a regular requirement of black and brown authors. And often what happens is whiteness becomes the standard by which all good theology is judged. You, you understand what I’m saying? Amen.
“So that if it’s right, theology is written by a white scholar who is contextualising that theology for white audiences. And so one of the things we see is, and hear this very, very carefully there’s racism by intent and there’s racism by consequence, you can have racism operating in a context where there are no individual racists. And that in part is the way in which white supremacy works in a socially sophisticated way when you have whiteness as the priority. And when folks work and operate in such a way with curriculum, with economics or with policies to maintain and to posture and to privilege that whiteness, and then to require those who are non-white to cultural, to culturally colonise, to whiteness.
“So then we think about reconciliation and ethnic hostility. The solution is not more black and brown faces in white spaces who colonise to whiteness. The solution is fundamentally, yes, the gospel, the cross, the resurrection, right? The blood of Jesus, but also de-throning white supremacy in all of the forms, in which it shows up in Christian spaces.”
These may be hard words for those who are white to hear, but Jarvis William’s quote amounts to a plea for giving non-white people a place in curricula in theological colleges.
For Wilson and Harris, labelling it as “Critical race Theory” is sufficient criticism. Anything that says racism is pervasive, is for them, CRT.
There is a pattern. Making space for others in society, whether dignity to transgender people, or space for other niceties in seminary is a problem for them. It is a politics of resentment, that people like them are not in charge of society.
So they attack other Christians, who can properly be regarded as theologically orthodox, and conservative theologically.
There will be reasonable criticisms to make of reformed evangelical institutions be they churches like City on a Hill, or SBTS. This writer would have different views on gun rights or healthcare from al Mohler who is an American conservative. But the attacks from Wilson and others are proving detrimental to Ministry. Ruth Graham of The New York Times reports that 42 per cent of evangelical pastors in the US considered leaving the full-time ministry in the last year. She tells the story of a pastor, Kevin Thompson blogging on Trump – and how Christians had rejected Bill Clinton for his infidelity. Backlash on socials. Later he blogs sympathetically about Black lives matter. More, backlash. “Again, now I’ve become a Marxist. And did I tell you the story about a person I grew up with in town who called me a Marxist?”
Later in another sermon, he uses the actor Tom Hanks as an illustration. That’s a tripwire, too. Turns out some members of his congregation follow a QAnon theory that Tom Hanks is the leader of a Hollywood pedophile ring.
Finally, he concludes “They wanted me to preach against those who are outside the room in order to rally those who are inside the room. And everybody inside the room ends up feeling better about themselves, but there’s been no change or transformation. That, to me, is not Christianity. That, to me, is not Jesus. That, to me, is not preaching.” Thompson took a job offer from another church in another state.
The term “big Eva” (short for ‘big evangelical’) is used by Wilson and similar writers to criticise Mohler and reformed evangelicals like Guy Mason. The same campaign techniques as used by the Trump campaign of identifying an ‘elite” to pillory, and stoke resentment is in view.
The term “big Eva” is a giveaway. It says “we are the underdog, the alternative that should be in the lead.”
Christian underdogs should never, never say that.
Image: screenshot from Doug Wilson’s YouTube